Art community unites to strengthen future

On January 9th and 10th, Pinecrest Gardens hosted the 13th annual South Motors Pinecrest Gardens Fine Arts Festival. The festival showcased over 50 different artists and their creations across 14 acres of land. The festival brought together different cultures and styles of art, ranging from the Caribbean islands to South America and Europe. Event directors hoped this festival correctly represented the mixture of cultures we have here in Miami, and they believe they did just that.

In the 13 years the festival has taken place Pinecrest Gardens Director, Alana Perez, has worked her hardest to bring artists from around the world to Pinecrest. She believes this event is a wonderful way for artists to show off their work and for families to have a great free of charge experience.

The artists that come to this festival look at it as a way to share creativity with their peers. “Miami is such a melting pot,” said macro-artist Lorri Honeycutt, “there’s so many flavors and ideas, and that brings a lot of creativity together.” Many artists had the same idea as Honeycutt and used the festival as a way to interact with other artists and learn from them.

The event is more than just an art exhibit. Organizers invited local bands to play during the festival as a way to represent their culture. Live bands played throughout the festival as local restaurants also took part cooking dishes that represented their restaurants as well as their culture. Organizers see this festival as a way for all the different cultures of Miami to communicate with each other and share in one special event.

Director Alana Perez also sees another benefit that comes from this event. “For me a day without the arts is like a day without sunshine,” said Director Alana Perez, “every child’s life should have art.” Perez envisions this event as a way for young people to get more involved in the arts. The more they advertise this event as a family outing, the more children are exposed to the arts, allowing them to begin appreciating it.

Perez and the other organizers that helped create this festival hope to see this go on for years to come. They believe the impact this event has is monumental to the culture of Miami and the world.

Produced by Danyel De Villiers, Written by Cesar Sabates, with help from Justin Jackson